Tilting Your Head A Little While In Conversation Can Lead To Deeper Levels Of Social Engagement

They say that up to 93 percent of communication is non-verbal and only 7 percent is verbal. While body language may be the key to communicating effectively with others, there are certain visual cues that can help more than others when it comes to connecting better with someone else.

When it comes to connecting at a deeper level with someone socially tilting your head can help you get to know a person better, reveals a recent study.

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The study suggests that we take in a ton of information naturally every time we look at someone’s face. For instance, their age, gender, race, etc. It helps us understand people and the world around us much better.

While having a conversation at a deeper level includes a verbal exchange of message as well, facial cues are specifically useful for people with autism, for instance, who’s brain find it hard to process information.

Social cues, such as looking into someone’s eyes could help you gather far more information than what you may think.

"Looking at the eyes allows you to gather much more information," said Nicolas Davidenko, an assistant professor at the University of California (US) Santa Cruz in the US. By contrast, the inability to make eye contact has causal effects, as reported by PTI.

"It impairs your facial processing abilities and puts you at a real social disadvantage," he said. People who are reluctant to make eye contact may also be misperceived as disinterested, distracted, or aloof, he said.

We tend to look at the left side of the face more when we look at someone. We engage in something called the ‘left-gaze bias’, which helps processing information from your face.

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The researchers found out that tilting your head even as little as 11 degrees activated an ‘upper eye bias’, superseding the ‘left-gaze bias’.

"People tend to look first at whichever eye is higher. A slight tilt kills the left-gaze bias that has been known for so long. That's what's so interesting. I was surprised how strong it was," said Davidenko.

He found that the tilting of your head makes people look more at the eyes, possibly because it makes someone more approachable and less threatening.

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"Across species, direct eye contact can be threatening. When the head is tilted, we look at the upper eye more than either or both eyes when the head is upright. I think this finding could be used therapeutically," said Davidenko.

The findings may also be of value for people with amblyopia, or "lazy eye," which can be disconcerting to others. "In conversation, they may want to tilt their head so their dominant eye is up," he said.

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"That taps into our natural tendency to fix our gaze on that eye," he added.